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News 12.08.17

8 December 2017 News


Fond du Lac fire officials say a fire over the weekend is a reminder why its important to call the Fire Department right away. A fire destroyed a car and damaged the garage and two houses Saturday night. Division Chief of Fire Prevention Troy Haase says the car owner told him she tried to put the fire out by herself before dialing 911. The fire spread from a car to the garage and the house and started melting the siding on a neighbor’s house. Haase says firefighters may have been able to prevent it from spreading. He says he understand people get panicky when fire starts, but getting the fire department first is the best option to prevent extensive damage.

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University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross wants to tweak his plan to merge the system’s two- and four-year schools to bring online degrees under the auspices of a four-year institution. The Board of Regents adopted a Cross proposal last month to make two-year schools regional branches of the four-years. The plan called for system administration to oversee an online degree program currently run by UW Colleges Online. But UW staff wrote in a memo to the regents that the Higher Learning Commission says only institutions accredited as degree-granting authorities to offer such an online degree. System administration lacks such accreditation. Rather than have the system go through the accreditation process, Cross plans to ask the regents Thursday to let a four-year campus administer the UW Colleges Online associate degree and allow him to pick the school.

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Federal prosecutors have charged 19 suspects in an alleged drug ring based in Milwaukee. U.S. Attorney Gregory Haanstad says law officers arrested all of the suspects Wednesday. The suspects are charged in connection with an alleged drug conspiracy, money laundering and bankruptcy fraud operation that distributed heroin, fentanyl and cocaine. The defendants live in the Milwaukee area, Chicago and Burlington, Iowa. The case is part of a long-term federal drug and money laundering investigation. Officers also executed 17 federal search warrants in Wisconsin and Illinois and one state warrant in Iowa. Authorities seized about 1.5 kilograms of cocaine, a half-kilogram of heroin, 21 guns, eight vehicles and an undetermined amount of cash. More than 250 federal, state and local officers took part in making the arrests and executing search warrants.

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Authorities say officers have fatally shot a man during a confrontation along a road in northeastern Wisconsin. Marinette County sheriff’s officials say there was some type of incident involving a male suspect and a handgun at a motel in Marinette shortly after midnight Thursday. Officers determined the man was possibly at a residence in the Town of Peshtigo. That’s where they found the man getting into a vehicle and driving away on Highway 64. Sheriff Jerry Sauve says the officers tried to stop the suspect who drove partially into a ditch, got out of the vehicle armed with a handgun and “placed the officers in danger.” Sauve says the suspect was shot and killed by the officers. Two Marinette officers and two sheriff’s deputies were involved in the incident and were not injured.

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